Against the odds, City find form and harmony – and the opposite elsewhere. It’s all rather paradoxical

Readers of a certain age and schooling will instantly recognize The Pirates of Penzance. Gilbert’s paradox, in that case, involved contracts and birthdays, but he might just as well have been talking about football.

In particular the past few weeks of Norwich City FC.

By general consensus, the game at Ipswich on 2 September was less than a classic; in truth, it was a game between two poor-looking sides. But for Mo Leitner’s strike, we might well have lost it, no doubt unleashing a toxic mood among the City faithful.

Even the draw did little to lighten the mood. We had five points from the first six games, and now faced a visit from Middlesbrough and a series of away games. It looked worrying, before the hammer blow of Grant Hanley’s injury.

And yet. We’ve garnered thirteen points from the six games between the international breaks, and it could easily have been more. The last two games, Derby and Stoke, could have delivered four points – maybe six – rather than one. Performances have got better and better.

After Ipswich, I wrote begging for more time before we made judgements. I thought our performances were better overall than our results and could see some spirit among the players.

I can claim credit for that, but not for much else. I thought we should give more time to Farke’s new players and tactics, but I wasn’t certain that results would pick up.

If you’d pushed me, I’d have said that any revival would depend heavily on Grant Hanley, Onel Hernandez, Kenny McLean and Jordan Rhodes. Yet three of them have missed the entire period through injury, while the other has been on the bench.

Paradox indeed – and perhaps an element of coincidence. But not a lucky one.

Daniel Farke’s signings this summer – plus the players he welcomed back from loan – were designed to give us more options, especially in attacking roles. In the pre-season game at Luton, three players stood out: Max Aarons, Todd Cantwell, and Marco Stiepermann in an advanced midfield role.

In other words, it wasn’t a happy chance that the selections since Ipswich have clicked. Some may not have been Farke’s planned pick for Middlesbrough, but all had been groomed and prepared for the roles into which they’ve slotted so well.

Thomas Edison put it elegantly:

“Good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation”

We’re rightly heartened by the team’s recent performances. In turn, they’re heartened by the kind of support we showed at the end of Saturday’s game. It’s a better feeling all round.

That said, let me defy my “happy clapper” reputation with a big word of caution. If we were in danger of letting negative feelings get out of hand in September, we may be in danger of letting positive ones get out of hand now.

The Championship is a tough league, where plenty of clubs have either deeper resources than Norwich or a fierce physical resilience to the kind of football we play. Just because we outplayed Stoke doesn’t mean we won’t struggle to beat Millwall, Rotherham or Bolton.

To stay around the top six, we’ll need to carry on working as hard as we have, and find ways to make our play a bit more penetrating. We may well be able to do it – we certainly have more options than last season – but it won’t be easy.

In addition to the regular articles on this site, I hope readers are enjoying our match previews based on chats with opposition representatives. Many of them are articulate and insightful; some are disarmingly honest about their clubs.

I’m thinking of the Villa fan I interviewed last year. It’s fair to say he wasn’t taken by the Steve Bruce mystique. Yes, Bruce had presided over several promotions – but he’d had just as many relegations, and often achieved less than you might expect from the resources at his disposal.

So he won’t have been too shocked at Bruce’s dismissal last week. What may have shocked and intrigued him, as it does us, is the Great Cabbage Incident.

Why and how did a cabbage get thrown at Steve Bruce by a frustrated home fan? Did he take a cabbage to the match with the express purpose of throwing it at the manager if the game was going badly? If so, why a cabbage?

Or was it an impulse action – having done some grocery shopping en route to the game, did he reach for the most suitable missile among his various foodstuffs?

Reader Interactions

Comments

Another good article, Stewart. May I add another note of caution? Football is a game of such fine margins, especially, it seems, in this season’s Championship. Games are decided by a goalkeeping error, a refereeing decision, a lucky deflection. Whilst I can see the possibility of City challenging for a top-six spot, a run of bad luck could easily see us back in a lower mid-table position.
It was heartening to see the positive attitude of the fans during and after Saturday’s defeat. (Although a man sitting near me continued to jeer every sideways pass and demand that the ball be hoofed forward). But would that positive attitude survive a series of disappointing results?
On another topic, what should we read into Steve Stones’ departure?

I don’t have inside knowledge about Steve Stone’s departure (though I’ll be writing a piece about his NCFC contribution later this week). It may be that there’s less to be read into it than some are speculating – sometimes it’s simply the right time for a person to move on.

I’m in a strange place on the “happy clapper” debate. When we’re on the pitch I back us to the hilt but I tend to be much more negative about the ownership as you know.

I’m frankly stunned about the Steve Stone situation. His departure, for reasons as yet unclear confounds me. Maybe we’ll find out most of the truth sometime soon. I hope for his sake it’s because he has got a better offer from elsewhere as I always found him genuine and impressive. Very unexpected, at least to me.

Very pleased the performances have apparently improved, after the games I saw at Reading and QPR, who on the day were both truly appalling, I wasn’t so sure. I still see too much sideways and backwards possession and runs at the front being ignored again and again. So hopefully as you say, things have moved on since then, but by design or accident born of necessity? It’s taken 60+ games, so I’m not convinced by Farke’s philosophy, or lack of. But I’m happy to give him 3 years, so it’s barely half time.

Cabbages and Kings
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
Sorry Stewart gad to get that in from Lewis Carroll.
Maybe the supporter was thinking Taylor the Turnip and Bruce looked like a cabbage we will never know.

Yes after a successful September we need to be careful not to get carried away there are always surprises around the corner and the reference is along came city but let’s not stop dreaming of just what might be coming at the end of the season that’s what football is about dreaming of a happy ending.

Wether Steve Stone was pushed, poached or left for a new challenge we will never have the full picture as there will be an NDA, so now we have a 3 person committee instead running the club and the strange part to that is it is really a 2 to 1 committee as Steve Webber has his wife along side him but that seem to be usual as she worked at Liverpool abd Huddesfield when he did.

So the committee could lose 2 members if webber decides to leave or is sacked but it makes a very unbalanced committee in my eyes an the EDP was saying it is nade up of as follows
1) Commercial Manager
2) Contracts Manager
3) Director of Football
Where is the financial Director or Chairman are these pisitions now redundant in the new setup, just as it looked city were getting a bit of stability it all changes again, I just hope this isn’t the Smiths proving who has the power at the club because this could come back to haunt them big time.

Score more and everyone will be happy. That really is the bottom line. I can’t help feel we’ve had our rub of the green prior to Stoke with goals coming via deflections, penalties etc. Not that I can complain but we really need to start putting them away and Pukki was only going to last so long. This is where the gulf of resources + quality at this level = goals becomes apparent between us and the other nearly rans a la Dwight Gayle. Im not a fan of squeaky butt time and goals for has been apparent problem last season and it’s eking into an underlying one this.

1) Finding out the real state of the finances. With the MD leaving shortly before the financial results are due to be released, are we seeing someone jump ship early or pure coincidence in timing.

2) Hanging onto the core of our team through the next two transfer windows. Maddison got us through the last pickle, but if our non-staff costs remain anywhere near as high as previous years (and we did just lay a new pitch), a deficit surely remains.

I’m happy with the way City are currently playing but am concerned about the new committee structure following Stones departure.
A business should always have one person where the buck stops regarding finance.
The new structure is an ideal situation for buck passing.
This may prove to be a cost saving too far.

Yes, I agree. The ‘new’ structure screams temporary. It is definitely unstable as it is, and I’d love to know the reporting lines within it. Ben Dack as Finance Director obviously reported to Steve Stone before, so assume he will report to Ben Kensell now. The Pink’Un described him as being the COO previous to this, but the club’s own website only describes him as being the Commercial Director. And how does Zoe Ward become part of that triumvirate, with its obvious family implications?

We really have now replaced a structure that made a lot of sense with something that does not!

I don’t see why Stone’s departure should have any influence on what we do on the pitch. Most professional footballers would walk straight past members of their board if they met them in the street, as would happen with most employees in most companies. The faces in the boardroom are unfamiliar to most supporters, with the probable exception of Delia, and it’s the same for most of the players.

I’m not sure why Canaries fans love a conspiracy theory so much. I suppose it’s because we don’t want to be seen to be too happy, in case something goes wrong.

Don’t get carried away with what’s happening in the background, just give your full support to what’s happening on the pitch (as we did on Saturday, despite the result).

Watching MOTD again beause of course I am. The first goal made by an overlapping Byram making space for an advancing Tettey, that's right Tettey to take the ball wide, cross to win the corner. Hard to pick an MoM but Tettey was immense after so little football #ncfc

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